Restorative yoga is a powerful practice that supports the body’s natural healing processes. By using props such as blankets, bolsters, and blocks, you are able to find a comfortable and supportive position for each pose, enabling you to hold each posture for longer periods of time. This allows your body to fully relax, release tension, and restore balance. Most of the poses are lying down … Continue reading What is Restorative Yoga?
Zero Motivation and Minimum Focus In theory, this is a busy time of year for yoga teachers. All those people wanting to take time for their health and wellbeing, and all ready to join yoga classes. And me? Staying up late and snoozing on the sofa, reading novels, doing puzzles. Zero motivation and minimum focus. I have not been ready for the new year at … Continue reading Boost Motivation and Focus with Yoga
Yoga Breathing exercises to change how you feel The folllowing exercise is very simple and can be done at any time, while simply sitting in a chair. You don’t have to have any yoga experience or be at all fit or flexible. As a famous yoga teacher once said, “if you can breathe, you can do yoga”. At the end of the exercise I give … Continue reading Change how you feel with yoga breathing exercises for anxiety or low energy and mood
How are you? I hope you’re looking after your mental health at the moment. It’s tough to stay grounded and compassionate when the news is full of war. Our nervous systems have barely had a chance to recover from the panic and anxiety of the pandemic when we’re being activated again. The stress hangs around in the body unless we do something about it so … Continue reading Looking after your mental health in challenging times
Recently my students have been asking whether there were any yoga poses to help them boost their mood naturally. There are definitely some poses that are more uplifting energetically and I share some movements below that I hope many people will find easy to do. There are also some breathing practices that can help, so I’ve included a couple of those too. Finally I share … Continue reading 5 easy yoga practices to naturally boost your mood
How are you finding October? It gets very damp here on the coast in Co Kerry, Ireland and at some point the temperature will drop considerably as the leaves drop too. It’s too soon to get excited for Christmas (is it??) so as the nights get longer and we wait for the first storm of the season to whip off the rest of the leaves … Continue reading Self love rather than self care for me this week
I’ve been doing a lot of research in the past year, looking into the ways yoga can help with various health issues: from sleep problems, to long covid to anxiety. It’s been fascinating and regular yoga practice has an awful lot to offer anyone dealing with those issues. However, I had one of those moments recently where I thought, how about just Yoga for Yoga? … Continue reading Yoga for Yoga
I’m just listening to the most beautiful podcast from Tara Brach. She’s a fab meditation teacher, maybe you’ve already come across her? This talk is about imperfections in nature and in ourselves, and how we respond to them to increase/reduce our own suffering. There’s an anonymous saying…”Who is unhappy? The one who finds fault.” It’s so true isn’t it? It’s not easy to change a … Continue reading New Term, New Yoga Classes
The inspiration for my classes this week is kaivalya or freedom. This builds on last week’s idea of letting go. Sometimes we have to let go of something to experience greater freedom. Freedom as a goal of yoga You could say that freedom is one of the goals of a yoga practice. This might be as simple as feeling that your shoulders are a bit … Continue reading Finding freedom through yoga
I’m afraid this is a ‘It depends’ answer for general classes. Unless you’re going to a Pregnancy Yoga class, it is better to play it safe during your first trimester and not attend class. This is especially true for people who’ve done no yoga before. Of course there are plenty of people who do yoga before realising they are pregnant, so please don’t panic if … Continue reading Can you do yoga when pregnant?